In the sphere of cultural confrontation, Andrew Hartman surveys the changing face of the culture wars in the political moment of #MeToo and the Parkland student protests, while Maximillian Alvarez ponders the future of generational conflict in an era of seemingly permanent austerity. Barbara Ehrenreich asks whether we’ve been misapprehending the motives of patriarchal predators, and Robin West looks at how harassment law has perversely codified certain kinds of unwelcome sexual attention as a cultural norm.

Meanwhile, Lucy Ives and Yasmin Nair consider the language tossed about in the hallowed halls of our corporatized universities. Lauren Oyler examines the barren landscape of contemporary fiction and the strange career of Helen DeWitt, one of America’s great living novelists. Jacob Siegel tells the strange tale of crypto-anarchist gun merchant Cody Wilson. And Jason Linkins revisits the truth-averse efforts of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as the origin of many of the worst features of the Trumpian propaganda machine. The unilateral disarmament of the liberal mind before such challenges functions as the great enabler of our new millennial age of hatred....more

Community Reviews

"River of No Return," "Dispatches from the Grey Zone," and "Manufacturing Consent" are the crown gems here. Ehrenrich's piece is uncharacteristically trifling and a bit slight, and the two pieces in the middle about the institutions of higher education have lower batting averages than the majority of the salvos, but overall a consistently strong offering.